We mustn't touch what isn't ours.

I continued stumbling through the dark. Snow covered the ground and adorned treetops, muffling my steps and heavy breathing as I made my way up a particularly steep hill. The torch I had craftily affixed to my beanie with various pins and tape, threw columns of pale light through the dense trees but the constant movement of the light played tricks with my eyes and every few seconds I would turn and stare at spots I could have sworn moved without invitation.

Withdrawing the roughly sketched map from my pocket, I paused beside a moss-covered tree. Being careful not to lean against it while checking my position with the old compass in my other hand.

“Damn, too far east” I muttered.

Redirecting myself through the stand of trees, I went over the instructions in my head for what felt like the hundredth time.

Billings, bended snowy white.

Winding downwards this moonlit night.

Find the spot, tucked in tight.

Buried deep in trunks of height.

Until now, the small black notebook that resided in my coat pocket had given fairly prosaic directions but this one led me to wandering around the Wisconsin Municipal Forest past midnight. Wishing I had the sense to bring extra layers as the wind picked up and whipped through the trees above me, I continued down through a patch of white tipped bushes.

I had been here almost every day since the message first appeared in the notebook six weeks ago. Yet at night, it was eerily unrecognisable. I’d spent weeks decoding the scrawled message and even more time canvassing for trees with ‘spots’.

Still, the notebook had never led me astray. Everything it had led me to so far was beyond what I could have imagined. The Montarils case had been unsolved for longer than I'd been alive. Trying to explain to the Captain how I had successfully tracked down the murder weapon from a 32 year old cold case, I was sure that she would see right through me. Then, mere weeks later, finding those two children. Would people believe that I just happened to stumble across the car from the amber alert in a shopping centre car park. How do I explain that I already knew they would be there. I couldn't tell anyone how I was truly solving these cases, and who would believe me even if I did.

I don't know if I even believed it yet. Surely I must have been crazy to follow instructions that seemed to have mysteriously appeared in the notebook I had bought for casenotes. I remember coming downstairs that morning before work and finding my new notebook lying on the ground. Thinking maybe my cat Eddie had knocked it off the bench during the night in his pursuit for midnight snacks, I had picked it up and noticed what looked like handwritten notes scrawled across the open pages.

652 Vellen Drive

Frosty cove

Montaril

Any clear thinking individual would surely have taken the book straight back to the store and demanded a refund or replacement. But there was a word in the notes that had caught my eyes. Few people remembered the Montaril case, I had only ever read about it in the old courthouse documents during my internship before pursuing detective work. The Montaril family's eldest daughter had gone missing in the Winter of 1977. The family had sold everything in order to pay the ransom demand. Several days later the rest of the Montarils vanished. In 1980 their remains were found by campers in the woods. With no evidence or solid leads the case had gone cold.

Anyone else may have just read that inscription as someone jotting down a reminder or else laying claim to the notebook. But when I recognised the name of Montaril, I knew that this was more than that. This was a clue.

Following these new leads that were until now unexplored, I discovered the links between the eldest Montaril daughter and a previous employee at the Frosty Cove resort during 1977. The worker's ex-boyfriend's address was still 652 Vellen Drive and, sure enough our searches produced the gun that was positively matched to murders and a confession ensued.

I was still basking in the glory of this success when I noticed the inscription in the notebook had disappeared. I was naive enough to believe that maybe I had hallucinated this and put it down to my unconscious self having mulled over the details of the case and produced an epiphany. That was until several weeks after the Montaril case closure. When I noticed the old message had been replaced with a new one.

12th April 2009

3:40pm

1326 Weeks Ave

A time, place and date that was still three days away. My curiosity got the better of me and I spent that morning parked across the street watching the parking lot of the Grand Central Plaza. Sure enough, at 3:40pm in pulled the car that had just 10 minutes earlier been reported in conjunction with an amber alert. My Captain simply couldn’t believe how lucky it was that I just happened to be doing some lunch break shopping at the same time.

Now I’m here, in the middle of the night, miles from home, trudging through the foreboding woods in my homemade headlamp beanie following the notebooks most obscure and confusing clue yet, searching for the tree that I had only hours earlier identified as the the tree with the ‘spot’, trusting fully in the accuracy of the notebook and its clues.

I didn't even notice that my feet had stopped in front of the towering tree I had marked earlier with orange string. My thoughts of the past and my Captain dissolved as I glanced around at the quiet opening. My heart pounded in my chest, I didn't know what I was about to find, another cold case clue? I'd spent the past few weeks researching other unsolved cases in the hope the notebook would give me another clue.

The tree had a small crevice in the trunk just above head height, I didn't dare reach in during the daylight. Now I was all alone, it was safe to retrieve what I hoped would be the next clue.

With one final glance around the dark emptiness I stretched up and fumbled around until I felt something small and clad in cloth. The bag was slightly damp from the snow. Gripping it safely, I pulled it out. In the light it looked old, worn and greying. There was a hole in the bottom corner, the material around it had started to fray.

All of my nerves seemed to have frozen, unrelated to the snow; I was now almost squatting in in order to see the bag. Holding my breath, I slowly peeled the material apart and my jaw dropped.

A finger. It rolled out, decaying and adorned with a large golden ring within which was set a very authentic looking emerald. It sat atop the snow glinting in the light. What on earth had I just found. No cases I had researched mentioned a victim missing a finger, and surely if anyone had lost one that held a ring this large they’d have lodged a report to claim it. My first thought was to call the Captain, She would be able to call out the coroner who would at least determine if it was real or not.

My hands were in my pocket searching for my phone when I noticed the plastic slip that had fallen out of the bag along with the finger. Snatching it up I ripped it open, maybe more fingers?

For the second time that night I found myself staring, mouth open. Money, lots and lots of money fell out with a soft thump against the snow. Almost instinctively I looked around, still I was alone. Staring at the pile of hundred dollar bills my brain kicked into gear. What do I do? My hand was still halfway through finding the Captain's number, I could still call her, explain the situation.

But how do I explain this, I was strolling through the secluded woods in the middle of the night and somehow found a bag of money and a decapitated finger? No.

I could take the money. Take it and put the finger back. Nobody knows about it, nobody saw me here or the money. I could take it. I could even put the finger on the ground in a safe spot and anonymously place a tip for the police. Everyone wins then.

Before I had the chance to make up a plan, the darkness seemed to have shifted in the distance, as if someone had moved. Making up my mind in an instant I grabbed the money, stuffed it all in my pocket and seized the finger. Stomping through the snow throwing cautious glances over my shoulders every few paces until I reached the footpath of the trail. Once on the path I looked around for a safe space. Noticing a bench near an overcrowded bin and not stopping to decide any further, I haphazardly threw the finger towards the bench and continued running along the path for what felt like hours until I could see my car in the distance.

Throwing myself inside and locking the doors I stopped and looked down into my pocket, ensuring the money was still clutched in my fist. The cold had seemingly frozen my unclad hand. Breathing slowly I turned on the car, not thinking, barely noticing where I was, relying on the instinctive muscle memory for the route home.

Once I got through my front door I pulled off my jacket and placed it safely in my closet, only now realising how exhausted the night had made me. Crawling into bed I fell asleep without bothering to undress any further.

The following morning I woke up and hurried to the closet, pulling out all the contents of my jacket pockets; the piles of money, my notebook, the crumpled map, compass and my phone. Carefully placing it all on the bed I counted out the money until, after several re-counts to ensure accuracy, I sat back staring out at the four even piles. Twenty thousand dollars. I'd never seen so much money in my life. My brain was speeding through the possibilities that this money could help make happen. Overdue bills, finally fixing my cars broken taillight, the loans that were slowly piling up.

It was only when my phone chimed that I looked down and remembered that I had forgotten to call in my anonymous tip for the whereabouts of the finger. Reaching down I found a missed message from my Mum about family dinner next weekend. Ignoring this I quickly typed in the number for the anonymous tip line that we had set up during the Montarils case - we decided to leave it open so that the public could come forward with any tips for other cases. Briefly stating the location and what was there, I sent off the message before turning back to the bed. I grabbed the notebook and headed downstairs for coffee.

The mug steamed in my hands as I placed it down on the table. Putting down the notebook and letting it fall open I went to the bench to grab the map of the County I kept tacked to the wall and the pile of unsolved cases. I wanted to trace out where I had found the finger and whether any other bodies had ever been found in the area. Placing them on the table I looked down and noticed a new message in place of the old clue that had led me to the money. My heart seemed to stop, my stomach turned to lead and my knees gave out as I fell to the floor. Shaking, I grabbed the book and stared at the new message.

That didn't belong to you.